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Live blog: Climb for Costa update, Froome and Uran hit the dancefloor, catching the bus Dafne Fixed style + more
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Wed, Nov 07, 2018 08:36
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Jack is group editor across road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips, overseeing all three sites in the F-At Digital group to make sure everything’s up to scratch. He’s been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of road.cc including tech, news and video, and also contributed to ebiketips before being named editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town, and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master’s degree in print journalism, and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it’s a long story).
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Latest Comments
Blackthorne83 18 minutes ago
@Mr Blackbird where can I find photos of this study? Asking for a friend.
mctrials23 29 minutes ago
@Gd29 I was waiting for the classic "why don't we just ban driving completely by reducing the speed limit to 5mph or 0!" argument and here it is. The statistics are very clear on the benefits of reducing the speed limit from 30-20mph. It doesn't remove bad driving but it mitigates the damage. It also makes fuck all difference to journey times. Everything with driving is risk vs reward. Sure, dropping it to 10mph would save a lot more people but it would make travel by car ridiculous and have minimal benefit vs 20mph. The reward wouldn't be worth the cost.
chrisonabike 31 minutes ago
@Gd29 "Speed limits are an ineffective tool when the problem is drivers not driving in an appropriate manner for the conditions and environment. Those drivers weren’t following the speed limit and/or paying sufficient attention anyway!" That is a question, not an assertion. What are the relative numbers of drivers who are eg. "don't care" criminals who may never have taken a test or are happy to take life, how many are "criminally negligent" eg. may have a licence and not intend to break the law regardless, but just aren't fussed about basic safe driving (maybe regularly drive while tired, never slow down when conditions require), how many are just normal humans (who occasionally make unfathomable mistakes)? What are the relative rates of collisions? What are the casualty outcomes? What effect does simply changing a number on a sign have? If any, why? (There's the psychological "anchoring effect", if 70% of people *are* below the limit does that slow down others, do the "don't cares" maybe just overtake dangerously (but would they anyway? ) ) etc. Reduced speed is a mitigation in that it leads to better outcomes in collisions, that's a known I believe. IIRC there's also agreement that it can mean that fewer collisions happen as there's more time to react. "If that is the problem and you don’t deal with it, but you want to keep reducing injuries/fatalities, you have to keep dropping speed limits until you prohibit road use entirely" "If" (plus as noted other safety measures are available)
jaymack 42 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris - I think that driver must live near me.
chrisonabike 43 minutes ago
@Gd29 it's good to "point out potential abuse of stats - and for "keeping it concise for the public" no doubt some measure of "lies, damn lies and statistics" applies. But unless you have your own analysis / evidence, this may sound like a "just asking questions!" rhetorical tactic.
chrisonabike 47 minutes ago
@Gd29 exactly what variables / controlled experiments would suffice to convince you, and then how would you believe that would still hold in "real world" situations? We all know there are excellent ways to stop motoring-related KSIs - one being stop humans operating vehicles) but that isn't normally seen as realistic. Then there's another "remove the hazard" approach eg. completely isolate motorists from vulnerable road users (and "footways" alone might not be sufficient, as more people are killed there most years by drivers than eg. by cyclists in total, although that fact doesn't say much ). Though that by itself doesn't address motorists killing themselves / other motorists. Currently the UK - like many countries - is mostly doing a "remove the vulnerable road users" approach, partly by design but mostly indirectly by prioritising convenience for motoring (including journey time, which is seen to involve higher speeds).
jaymack 47 minutes ago
Do you really need an AI tool to tell you that 80% of a cyclist's drag is the rider or that getting in a more streamlined position you'll reduce drag etc.? Fabulous for the professional riders who use this site but for the rest of us our money would be better spent on yoga or pilates classes to help you hold a more streamlined position in the first place.
robgru76 57 minutes ago
Of course drivers need to be responsible and take care but we are in danger of getting a bit high and mighty when police raise issues like this. Since the clocks went back last weekend, I have been commuting home this week in the dark for the first time this year. I am gobsmacked by the number of cyclists I see who have no lights and no reflective gear, often with no helmets either. It's common sense to take precautions and we've got our head in the sand if we pretend all cyclists are taking appropriate steps to protect themselves and others.
chrisonabike 1 hour ago
@mdavidford was about to ask them if they thought the law should also been changed to ban the LAs from doing that, so as to save money...
M20MAMIL 1 hour ago
@Rendel Harris sentencing is Monday. 15 yrs minimum (not premeditated) but multiple aggravating factors. 20+ feels appropriate
18 thoughts on “Live blog: Climb for Costa update, Froome and Uran hit the dancefloor, catching the bus Dafne Fixed style + more”
Given their pricing I think
Given their pricing I think the idea is a DOA. £1 unlock + 20p a minute. £5 for a small journey – bargain!
Just get a bike.
Those e scooters were
Those e scooters were featured on BBC R4 news yesterday, quite an extended piece, detailing all the environmental benefits etc; longer than they have spent discussing the overwhelming greater benefits of cycling in the past thirty years. The BBC apparently has a blanket ban on even mentioning the incredible benefits of cycling, and the recent phone in on the You and Yours prog barely mentioned them, only when callers said how good they had been.
Given the overwhelming benefits of cycling, congestion, pollution, health, obesity etc, one might think that it would be front and centre of any item about those subjects, but it is never mentioned by the BBC. If anything else had half the benefits of cycling, they would be all over it 24/7/365.
The rest of the media is barely any better.
Crocs yes, but where are the
Crocs yes, but where are the pink pyjamas?!!!
Cue the usual late middle
Cue the usual late middle aged men braying about what people should be doing.
One less person on a toxic fume emitting mode of transport is good by me. I have no problem with the scooterers I’ve come across on the roads. Leave your crab in a bucket mentality alone and mob up with potential allies against the death cage lobby instead.
roadmanshaq wrote:
Which scooterers were these, considering they are illegal to use on the road?
Wait until someone kills an OAP on the pavement then you can talk about ‘death scoots’ instead of ‘death cages’ . There’s nothing fundamentally dangerous about cars…..unless you don’t control them properly. Same difference.
You’ll never win against the ‘death cage’ lobby anyway. It’s a multi-billion pound industry. Scooters….not so much.
It think the most telling part of scootering is you look like a bellend. Maybe if you’re one of radical kids that pop barspins and 360 on normal manual ones. Being a cyclist puts you into a lower social grouping so god knows what using a scooter does to you unless you’re a hipster.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
What a load of garbage. Cars and other motor vehicles kill thousands a year via fumes and particulates alone. You’re just completely ignorant of basic environmental health and there is no point continuing a chat with someone so clearly proud of being a blustering, anti intellectual fool.
roadmanshaq wrote:
Considering that one of the complaints often used against cyclists is “bl00dy stupid adults playing on their toys”, with a failure to see bicycles as a valid form of non “toxic fume emitting mode of transport” and with a commensurate loss of status as a road user, exactly how far down the ladder do you think using an e-scooter will put you?
And, as YW rightly says, how long until some e-scooterer knocks someone down (whether or not its their fault) and the Tabloid Hounds are let loose on them…??
brooksby wrote:
Thinking that you’re ever going to win the public argument by appeasement is the worst fallacy there is. The suffragettes and civil Rights movement didn’t get their way by meekly soliciting the media’s OK and only a fool would think that method would work re rididng our society of the tyranny of the death cage.
roadmanshaq wrote:
Considering that one of the complaints often used against cyclists is “bl00dy stupid adults playing on their toys”, with a failure to see bicycles as a valid form of non “toxic fume emitting mode of transport” and with a commensurate loss of status as a road user, exactly how far down the ladder do you think using an e-scooter will put you?
And, as YW rightly says, how long until some e-scooterer knocks someone down (whether or not its their fault) and the Tabloid Hounds are let loose on them…??
— roadmanshaq Thinking that you’re ever going to win the public argument by appeasement is the worst fallacy there is. The suffragettes and civil Rights movement didn’t get their way by meekly soliciting the media’s OK and only a fool would think that method would work re rididng our society of the tyranny of the death cage.— brooksby
Excuse me?
My point, I think, was that many people already think that cycling is too dangerous and wouldn’t dream of cycling in with motor traffic, so how many people do you think would want to mix it with motor traffic on a scooter (even one with a LiOn battery for a motor)?
My other point was that cyclists=”evil runners down of poor pedestrians” in some corners of the media, and that all that vitriol would come crashing down on e-scooterists too as soon as there was the slightest hint of “Oh, well they nearly run me down, they did!”.
And as a final point, though I do take on board that we need to get people out of their cars, I’m still umming about e-bikes at present (got buzzed by one on my non-electric bike recently) so e-scooters are for me a bit of a step too far.
Final, final point, is that I’m really not sure that campaigning for cycling infrastructure or for alternatives to the motor car is truly comparable to the suffragettes or the civil rights movement. I understand the analogy, but…
brooksby wrote:
— brooksbyGiven that you exhibit complete ignorance of the harm caused by motor vehicles in pollution and maiming of normal people in their thousands, every year, I will not sweat your small minded Benedict Arnold chasing down of ebike riders and scooterers.
Get your priorities right.
roadmanshaq wrote:
Don’t be a middle aged brayer telling people what to do, mob up with the potential allies against the death cage lobby instead, and then tell people what to do.
These scooters have been
These scooters have been noted to have been left in really awkward places where they’ve been deployed in the states – partially blocking pavements, right next to crossings, and on street corners, for a few examples.
At least with these, they’re going to be a shape and size where I can easily chuck them out of my path if they’re in the way of my wheelchair – Obikes etc are way too bloody heavy, I usually end up just shoving them aside.
I have no problem with them in principle – anything to help bridge that last-mile gap and coax people out of cars – but like bloody sodding sandwich boards, if they’re taking up pavement in such a way as to present a navigational hazard to MI and VI pedestrians, then they shouldn’t be there and should be removed, before somebody either gets hurt or, ehem, accidentally damages them with their wheelchair.
Plenty of people in London on
Plenty of people in London on scooters of all sorts, skates, rollerblades, skateboards and even electric skateboards, all just getting on with it. Law needed to change ages ago. Anything that gets people out of their short-distance car journeys.
General Motors competition –
General Motors competition – I name this bike, “Fugly”
I think they need seatbelts,
I think they need seatbelts, airbags, numberplates, riders to wear helmets and Sa-vile’s wardrobe… then yes.
Actually, having not seen them i may be wrong, but the thing that would concern me is the wheels. Are they big enough to tackle the average pavement…
“GM are branching out and
“GM are branching out and have developed a folding e-bike… and presumably after a creative block in the boardroom they’re now asking members of the public to give them a hand naming it.”
Has “Too lazy to walk” been taken?
I do not think brooksby is
I do not think brooksby is ignorant of any of the things that you accuse him of there, perhaps you should read some of his other posts.
I also don’t think that the legality for escooters sits anywhere close to votes for women or the removal of the Jim Crow laws.
Segways never managed to be legal, nor did the hoverboard craze, these escooter people had better have very deep pockets, the Tory party don’t come very cheap.
Yes because you’re a fool –
Yes because you’re a fool – he literally claimed ‘cars do no harm’ in this same page ignoring the deaths and injuries caused by air pollution.
I have a right to not choke on toxic fumes and die a premature death, how about you start sticking up for yourself instead of rolling over for the death cagers like a tame dog. Scooterers are allies against the institutional ruination of our breathing gases.